Social Media Customer Service:7 Tips For Getting It Right

Deliver better support by applying these best practices to your social mediacustomer service strategy.

We used to wonder whether we even needed to worry about using social media to deliver customer service.

But these days, it’s not even a question.

The statistics are undebatable: more and more, customers are demanding social media support.

In one JD Power survey of more than 23,000 online consumers, 67% of respondents reported having contacted a company via social media for support.

But it’s not just about the number of customers turning to social media for help; it’s about what’s at stake:

One Gartner study found that companies who ignore support requests on social media see an average churn rate that’s 15% higher than companies who don’t.

And on the flip side, a study by Bain & Company suggests that when companies engage and respond to customer service requests over social media, those customers, on average, end up spending 20% to 40% more with the company.

7 Best Practices That Every Social Media Customer Service Strategy Needs

The good news is that while getting social media customer service right takes work, the best strategy is a pretty simple one: just follow these seven tips.

1) Pick the Best Social Media Platforms for Your Business

The problem with taking advice from someone else about the “best” platform to be on is that, well, they may very well be wrong.

The best platform for one business could be completely useless for yours.

What’s most important here is where your customers are.

And if you don’t know the answer to that, it’s a great idea to ask. A simple one-question survey, sent via email using a free service like Typeform or Google Forms, can point you in the right direction.

By going to where your customers actually are, you can deliver a support experience that’s native to their preferred network.

For example, KLM Airlines knows that many of their customers are professionals using LinkedIn. So the airline launched a special LinkedIn group that offers 24/7 customer support to KLM passengers.

Rather than having to email or call, KLM’s customers who are already on LinkedIn can get their issues resolved within a social network that they’re already on:

What you learn about where your customers spend their time might surprise you. Don’t make the mistake of assuming that Twitter or Facebook is the best fit for your audience just because you might spend the most time on them.

2) Monitor Social Media Mentions

You don’t actually have to stare at your social media feed all day (as tempting as that may be) to know when your customers need help.

There are some very useful tools now that will alert you when you get mentioned.

These tools can help you stay on top of when and where your product gets mentioned so that you can respond to your customers. They’re great for marketing, but just as important for customer support.

To take things a step further, our team uses the Twitter and Facebook integrations in Groove to get social media mentions right in our help desk, where we can create support tickets from social mentions and respond directly from the app.

3) Look for Mentions That Might Not Be Obvious

Don’t assume that customers know your Twitter handle.

In fact, research shows that only 3% of brand mentions actually use a Twitter handle, instead opting for the company or product name.

Similarly, don’t assume that customers are spelling your company or product’s name right.

Misspellings Happen

Search for your product or business name, along with misspelled variations, on a regular basis (some tools, like HootSuite, will automatically update your feed with new search results) to catch people who are having trouble.

4) Speed Matters in Social Support

While speed may not be most important factor for great support in email, phone, or in-person service, in social media, speed trumps all.

In a survey by The Social Habit, 32% of social media users who contact a brand expect a response within 30 minutes, and 42% expect a response within 60 minutes.

The fast-paced nature of social media—built around live feeds—creates expectations that are different from platforms like email, where a 24-hour response time is a bit more acceptable.

That is, getting passed from one agent to another, or one channel to another.

Simply telling your customer that they need to call or email for help isn’t going to cut it; it comes off as rude, abrasive and completely lacking empathy (the most important customer service skill).

Instead, use the same friendly, helpful tone you normally would, and start the process of making the customer feel cared for by emphasizing that you’re not just handing them off, but that you’re going to make things right.

@gabelfisch Hey Markus -- yikes, sorry! Would you mind emailing w/ account info to support@groovehq.com? We'll get this sorted for you :)

By linking to knowledge base articles, you can save time for yourself and make life easier for your customers. Rather than having to explain multi-step processes over social media, you can provide them with easy-to-follow, step-by-step guides built to help.

Social Media Customer Service Can HelpGrow Your Business

By delivering great support on the social platforms that your customers already frequent, you can build stronger relationships with them and in turn, create more loyal customers.

Ultimately, loyal customers are the easiest way to grow your business in the long-term, and the only way to survive.

Hopefully this post has demystified social media support for you, and you’ve picked up some tips that will help you improve your social support strategy.

What have your own experiences with social media customer service been? Let me know in the comments!